Casa Bonita opened summer reservations on Monday, and it appears the Lakewood Mexican restaurant remains one of the most coveted tables in town – even nearly two years after making its re-debut under owners Matt Stone and Trey Parker of “South Park” fame.
At 9 a.m., Casa Bonita made reservations available for June 1 through Sept. 7, and anyone who signed on to casabonitadenver.com to grab on joined a massive queue of hopeful diners. By 10 a.m., nearly 10,000 people were in line to book a table and the wait time was expected to be longer than one hour.
The amount of fanfare resembles when Casa Bonita moved to make reservations available to the general public last September, after about 15 months in “soft open” mode. The first reservations rollout was mired by glitches in the digital system that frequently kicked people to the back of the line or prevented them from completing booking.
This week, however, those appeared to have been worked out, as the booking experience was seamless. There were also plenty of reservation dates and times available.
Casa Bonita’s popularity is unsurprising, given its long history as a staple attraction near Denver. What is notable, however, is that demand to dine there is still overwhelming, since it will be two years reopened come June.
What’s the buzz about? While Casa Bonita is a restaurant and a historic landmark, the real draw is the entertainment. The 52,000-square-foot interior is designed to resemble different parts of Mexico, complete with cliffs from Acapulco, where divers leap and do tricks into a pool below. There are also roving actors, magicians, an arcade, a puppet show and areas to explore like Black Bart’s Cave at the core of the experience.
Lakewood’s Casa Bonita was once one in a chain of restaurants, but it is now the last one standing. It was almost lost for good during the pandemic, when it closed and the former parent company, Summit Family Restaurants, filed for bankruptcy.
That’s when Stone and Parker, who grew up in the metro area, stepped in to save a beloved hallmark of their childhood. Fans of “South Park” may recall an episode in which Cartman swindles his way into a trip to Casa Bonita – affectionately called the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants in the script.
Stone and Parker purchased the pink palace in 2021 for $3.1 million. The catch: They bought it sight unseen and unknowingly committed to a renovation project that cost them an additional $40 million. Parker described the dilapidated building as “the very, very worst” episode of “Kitchen Nightmares” you could imagine in a 2022 interview with The Denver Post.
Though it was a massive undertaking, it also made for excellent content. Stone and Parker’s journey to reopen the stalwart Lakewood attraction was chronicled in a documentary entitled “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” which is streaming on Paramount+.
In the time since Casa Bonita reopened, the restaurant has undergone several changes as Stone and Parker rethought the flow and customer experience. The menu has also seen several iterations and currently offers a variety of Tex-Mex dishes plus the ever-popular fried sopapillas.
